The Ticking Clock
by Mr. Achak Wolf
Summary: A hit and run has left Nick and Judy hospitalized. While Judy goes into surgery, Nick is left to his thoughts which drive him to race the clock.


_**The Ticking Clock**_

 **There is no promise that fantasy was something free of reality. Every dream may mutate into nightmares. The face I've been seeing recently has told me everything's alright. Of course, a face will only stare at you, and any words they may speak will only be what you can infer from the scrunches of their cheeks and motions of their eyes.**

The message was clear as my glasses. My eyes were clear as pottery. The ink on the paper bleed deep into the parchment like the tubes in my arm. The paper read: **Officers Receive Near-Fatal Injuries Hit and Run**.

A hoarse sigh came from my sore throat looking over the words printed in bold letters. "It was supposed to be… - _sigh_ \- … she shouldn't have been there." I said roughly with the pain in my heart and throat mangling the tone of my speech.

"She'll be fine, honey." My mother said, gently rubbing my mangled arm in an attempt to comfort me.

"You keep saying that, but for some reason I just don't see it the way you do." I responded following with a hagrid cough as if I was choking on my own words.

"Son, you know they're doing everything they can," she softly replied to me. I can understand that she wanted to quell my doubt like a beaver repairing a dam.

"So what? Everything they can do wasn't enough to save my legs." I felt nothing in two places ever since the chase. My legs had gone forever numb on account of a spinal cord severed below my waste. All connection was lost like a girl hanging up the phone after realizing she doesn't have the strength to say she's moving away. "So why should I believe they can save her?" My words may have been grim, but I was in no mood for comfort. Despite being in a hospital, no band aide or antibiotic was enough to prevent the infection of hopelessness. It flowed through my nerves like juice through a straw. It was too late to rescue my faith in the doctors. The hypothermia had sent in on my heart from the chilling, emotionless thoughts continuously zapping between the synapses of my mind.

She stayed quiet and got the message however pessimistic is was. I wanted to be in isolation and left to waste in my own sorrow. She got up from the chair beside my bed and walked to the door. Turning her head back to look at me, she spoke quietly, "She'll be out of surgery in an hour." She exited leaving me with only her words and my thoughts. The clock adjacent to my wall read five o'clock. I didn't have a lot of time left.

I would be out of the hospital within a few weeks, but _her?_ She will remain as I cope with the fresh struggles of life. I would say the worst of them would be the fact I would have to face them alone. I knew she would be here for quite a while as her wounds were far greater than my. I would have to learn to move about without the use of my legs. The doctor said I would be assigned a therapist and that someone would take care of me until I was ready to live on my own again.

It didn't matter would be assigned as my guardian, for she was already gone. The part that matters is figuring out how to get up on time everyday for my new job at the desk. I wasn't sure how I would be able to enjoy an easy morning brew since she's always made it for me. Many years of marriage had given us habits that I would never be able to reproduce. They were gone now.

Friends for fifteen years, partners for fourteen, husband and wife for ten, parents for eight, lovers for life, soul mates forever. These numbers were all swept away by the screeching tires ripping at the cracked, black road like a rabid hound lunging forward at prey ready to devour whatever life could be taken.

Tired of attempting to decipher the tiny words from the article about our tragedy, I ruffled the paper up and let it fall to floor.

The thought that perhaps I was wrong came to me and I thought aloud, "What if-". The thought was interrupted rudely by the ever present soreness in my throat like a groom about to tell a kneeslapper of a joke, but is cut off by the slick best man beside him who asks, "Did you just rip one, bro?"

In response to my cough, I reached for the glass of water left on my bedside to clear my throat but was stopped by a series of battles with my lungs and windpipe struggling to survive the thundering cannon fire of raging bouts for a deep breathe.

Once the firing ceased and my breathe was soothing enough to inhale deeply, I reached again for the water but stopped instantly upon noticing the transparency of the liquid in my glass. Cut short of replenishing my ammunition for the next battle, I raised the glass to my muzzle and took a small sip, then a swig. The refreshment flowed down my throat like the synched sound of a smooth stroke of a guitar. After a gurgle, a groan, and the release of an "Ahh." my thirst was satisfied. The glass well over half full was still of great interest to me however.

The image of my mangled neck and body in the x-ray made me consider the image of the inner condition of my corpse of a body. This consideration along with the observation of such a clear drink made me think, "What would the water look like in my system?"

I rested the glass by the bedside and conferred that I was fine with only a puddle over the flood I was praying for. A drop of murky water granted from the dripping of a rusted pipe was better than being granted a drought over a typhoon.

I looked to the clock again and found time has was peddling faster than I was. The long arm of the clock stretched across the room to slap the numbers into my eyes: **5:10**.

I'm not in Kansas anymore. I'm in the land of Oz. Unlike Dorothy, I've landed in a crowd of partizan spears resting inches from my throat in middle of Winkie Country.

There was fifty minutes left to cope with the kamikaze of reality and I had the preparation of Pearl Harbor. How was I going to deal with this. Life isn't a stacked deck in favor of some and at odds with all else with its chosen few. The Grim Reaper is an equal opportunist when he rolls his dice to see whose heart will receive the touch of the wilting flower. I had no reason to pout or to complain that life had no warranty. So why was I choking up at the thought of water looking as wretched as my heart?

A nurse poked to curious eyes through the crack in my door to see to if I was still awake. They told me that I should attempt to rest as sleep would ease my wounds and my mind as they attempted to save my beloved's life. An engine only runs as well as the gasoline it burns. A clock only ticks as fast as its gears will turn. My engine was burning only fumes. My gears have all become rusted.

She scurried into the room with a few supplies to replace the IV drip at my side. The bag was nearly empty, and the fluids inside would surely keep my condition stable. At least my heart could keep pumping blood even if the blood was tainted.

She didn't say word but shuffled her cart with the waste out of my room and left me with another glass of cold water. Before I could occupy my mind with another thought, the clock before me read **5:30**.

" _How is that clock keeping up with the time?"_ I asked myself with sweat forming atop my head.

I wanted to shout with the clock until my throat's soothed state eventually gave in like its just gone through a petty divorce trial with kids present or speech on the importance of a prosperous economy.

My shouting would only become silent as an unscheduled appointment with pity had just walked through my door.

The chief, burly and aged, strutted to my beside without the usual commanding figure I had been used to. His eyes had become as black as mine and his strength had diminished like my patience for the clock's slowly encroaching six stroke ding.

We exchanged glares like car insurance as if we both felt that we were to blame. Was I too careless with the case? Maybe. Was he too careless with the case? Maybe. Did matter to me. No. The game of pointing figures and scratching claws at one another was not something I thought either of us would play. We had done so ever since I became an officer and with our conflicting approaches came friction on how to deal with _her._

He was the police chief, and I, her partner. We both held a responsibility for her safety and the fact of the matter was that she was hurt by our conviction of carelessness was something we both had to bear. Still, I was there. He sent us on a simple mission and we walked into hole of spikes and bear traps. Better knowledge might have prevented such accidents but the eagerness to finish a case approaching the end of the wire and the ambition of two dedicated officers was a tidal wave the makeshift beaver dam could not repel.

He was there to simply offer his sympathy, and we both knew that. I didn't focus anymore on his eyes anymore, even when he sat next me. He brought no olive branch but instead a bottle of brandy. Something to ease the spirits and quell the monsters back into the closet and under the bed.

"I know we aren't are speaking terms-" He started.

"Then why are you speaking to me?" I interjected.

I wasn't at war with him but an armistice was all that was passed. The treaty was yet to be signed.

His tone changed from a spark to a gas fire with rage on his tongue, "I didn't come to patronize you this time! I only came to-" He yelled with yet another interruption.

"Offer your sympathies. To say it we should've known better and that we won't rest until they've been caught. That's a BS lie you give to the press and the public that you know won't work a snide bastard like me."

Like my mother, he came only to comfort me. Unfortunately, comfort is a sweet tea too sour for my taste right now.

"I-ju… I… I… don't know she's going to be alright." He was breaking down like a child in losing their mother. "I have a feeling, but… it's not a good one." I replied blankly.

"They're doing what they can. I don't think… I don't think that it will be enough." he said as if he got a large wrap sheet of dirty deeds off his chest. He sat there expecting anger erupting from me. A shallow set of words knitted together in my witty head then spit out like an eight-year old chowing on broccoli was what he was prepared for. Little did he know that the terrible truth was that a symptom of my illness lead me to believe him if not in the slightest way at least.

Keeping him in suspense or in a cliffhanger seemed cruel so without flinching I responded, "So what? Whatever we say won't change what's happening to her right now."

He repeated the motions of my mother and left immediately. The truth is a punk on the corner who'll steal lunch money from any kid arrogant to say he's only got enough gum for three when they've got another piece in his backpack.

The clock read **5:45** now and I suddenly felt time stop. It wasn't a realization or epiphany that made me hope everything would be alright.

The sudden lapse of time has made me into the Tin Man. I've found my heart and the sound as it beats is breathtaking experience that makes me wonder what am I doing with my time.

Before the door to my room closes shut, a small appendage reaches between the crack and stops the sealing of my room. The door opened slowly and tore my stare from the ticking clock to the tiny footsteps of my daughter.

Gabriel did not come to give news of the Second Coming today. Today wasn't an answer to prayer, but to simply cure my illness.

I focused on her and the little basket she carried with her. I spoke no words as she came to me with her gift. "Daddy?" she asked looking for an answer. "Yes sweetie?" I answered.

She unveiled a rag that covered her basket. Inside was a clutch of dirt and grass that served as a the foundation of my answer. Three Carnations, all of which were solid in color, was her gift to me. She placed them on my lap and said, "Mommy said she wants you to pick flowers for her once the doctors are done helping her." With that, she left me as did all other visitors.

A look at the carnations showed a row of three colors. First a deep red. My blood was flowing. Second was a bold mauve. My mind was racing. Third was a pure white. My soul is exciting. With that I concluded, "Everything's alright."

I looked at the clock and saw that I've finally caught up with the hands. The short at six and long at twelve. The ding of six strokes in its aforementioned series. **6:00**.

My heart is ticking. I reached for my glass of water and fed the flowers the essence of the earth.

I turned to my side and held my basket. As the finally ding came, I saw each pedal extend and open to the light coming through my window.

A nurse peeked her head in and saw my clutching. She closed the door and assumed I was resting. Little did she know, I was crying.

" _Judy…"_

 **7:00**

"She's ready to see you now." The nurse stated awakening me from my state of slumber.

I felt the basket in my paws and clutched it tightly. With no worry in mind, I turned to the nurse. She had a wheelchair ready for me at my beside. I raised my body upward and sat in the chair to best of my ability.

"Are you ready Mr. Wilde?" she asked.

I looked at my flowers and then my bedside. "Nurse, can you get something for me?"

"Mrs. Wilde?" The nurse asked before she poked her head into my room. My ears perked up even in their wounded state wondering what she had to say.

"Yes nurse?" I asked.

She wheeled him in with my flowers up to my bedside.

He landed a sweet kiss on my lips to feed our hunger for each other. Before I could drag him into my bed, he grabbed my face and looked into my eyes. His were bright and rejuvenated as when he was young. I had the feeling he saw the same in me.

He reached into the basket and pulled out a photo. Pressing it to our faces to show clearly his gift to me. It was a photo of me holding our baby at her birth and Nick staring lovingly at her from my side.

I looked back to his grinning face.

" _Nick…"_

" _Judy…"_

 __" _What am I going to do with you now?" She asked giggling with me._

" _I don't know. Whatever it is, we'll take our time."_

 **This isn't what I usually do, but I felt inspired by hearing a few poems and by a drawing I made. If you want to know what the meaning of the work is then I'll let you know in the reviews because I want you to think about the writing. I know what it means, but I'd rather you try to interpret the work and tell me what you think.**


End file.
